The worst thing was she wasn’t even going to get to see her mum, not that she’d told her she was flying to the UK – or about Luke. Seamus’s brief had made it quite clear she was to head straight to the Highlands and begin work immediately. Part of her was relieved, if she was being honest with herself. She’d been so absorbed in her New York lifestyle – and in herself – that the thought of going home to her mum with her tail between her legs would have smarted all the more, even if she really could do with a hug right about now.
She’d tell her soon, she reasoned, when she could face the truth herself, and maybe then there’d be no need to mention it at all. Her old life still hung in the balance. Everything depended on her success in Scotland. There was yet a chance she could snatch it all back and nobody need ever know about her sudden, dizzying fall from grace. She’d never get Luke back, of course. Not that she’d take him back, not after all this, at least that’s what she tried to convince herself. He was always so bloody resolute. He saw what he wanted and he always got it. He’d wangled a better deal with this Himari. But there was still a slim chance she could win back her pride by winning over Seamus and the board. It meant starting all over again from scratch, this time without Luke and his buddies, or their lovely decadent home and everything they’d shared these last three years.
The captain announced a spot of turbulence ahead as the lights dimmed in the cabin. Nina didn’t even hear it. She was crying again and, at last, on the verge of sleep, only vaguely, distantly brooding over how not only had Luke broken her heart but he’d staked his claim to all their friends too, and now here she was up in the air with no home to call her own, barely holding onto her job, and being sent into the back of beyond on a scouting mission she suspected was simply a way of getting her out of Luke and Seamus’s hair while things settled down back in New York. It wouldn’t do having her mooning around the offices or making a scene.
‘I’ll show them,’ she mumbled as she drifted off. ‘I’ll find these Scottish “it” people. I’ll sniff outthemost craveable products and beautiful brands… fly back to New York with my head held high, show them what I’m made of. I can play their game. I learned from the best, didn’t I? Schmooze ’em and booze ’em, promise them the stars, sign on the dotted line…’
Nina was snoring and drooling, her hair flattened against the little window, by the time the pilot started their descent. She didn’t even flinch as the plane buffeted and bumped in the stormy Scottish sky, conveying her down through the dark night to God knows where.
Chapter Five
A Big News Day
Beatrice gulped. She didn’t often get nervous, but it had been a while since she’d done anything like this. The waves of queasiness she’d woken up to for the last few days and which she’d put down to a winter bug, combined with her nerves and made her gulp and flatten her palms over her stomach.
‘Is my hair OK?’ she asked, knowing it was blowing in wet whips in the snow storm that had descended on Port Willow overnight.
‘You look great,’ said Kirstie, the local news reporter, not looking up from reading through her notes on her phone.
Atholl was standing behind the woman and her camera operator. He whispered loudly enough for everyone to hear, ‘You look braw, Beattie, especially with the Christmas lights along the jetty in the background. Pretty as a picture.’
‘Going live in five minutes,’ said the cameraman as he watched a screen showing scenes back in the Grampian TV news studio. It wasn’t exactly the international attention Beatrice had been hoping for when she’d started working on the inn’s refurbishment plans in the autumn, but it was a start.
‘Highlands and islands telly today, tomorrow the world, yeah?’ she quipped nervously to Atholl, who gave her an enthusiastic thumbs-up as the cameraman started his countdown and Beatrice felt a sudden panicked rush of adrenalin course through her body.
Kirstie faced the camera, straightened her spine and burst into life. ‘That’s right, thank you, Moira. Here I am in beautiful Port Willow Bay in Wester Ross where it looks like it’s going to be a white Christmas for the first time in ten years, and I’m at a very special pub, the Princess and the Pea Inn. I’m joined by one of the inn’s managers, Beatrice Halliday. Hello.’
The speed of the reporter’s introduction in her clipped Morningside accent threw Beatrice off. She managed a garbled hello which the woman promptly spoke over.
‘You’re preparing for a busy Christmas season at the inn, can you tell us about that?’
The camera panned to Beatrice just as a gust of sleety wind swooshed her hair up around her face. She straightened the strands and swallowed. ‘Yes, that’s right, Kirstie. We’re,um, we’re booked out for the first Christmas in years here at the inn.’ Suddenly unsure, she glanced at Atholl who was beaming with pride and nodding his encouragement.
The reporter looked less encouraging – as though she could think of nothing she’d rather do less on a freezing Christmas Eve morning than stand on the roadside by a pub interviewing some English landlady. Beatrice fixed her eyes on Atholl as she continued, addressing her words only to his blue eyes and broad grin and finding her nerves slowly giving way.
‘Here at the inn we’re welcoming visitors keen to try their hand at learning new crafting skills. We’re using local experts to teach our guests the arts of knitting, weaving, spinning and dyeing, glass-working, willow-weaving, you name it. We’ve even got a Gaelic teacher.’
‘And what do your visitors want to get from a crafting holiday in the Highlands?’
‘Oh,um, well, they want to escape real life for a while and concentrate on learning a new skill. Some of them just want to slow down and take things easy. Making lovely things lets you do that.’
‘And are you crafty, yourself, Beatrice?’ Kirstie urged.
‘Um, not really. I’ve tried my hand at willow-weaving with our resident willow tutor.’ Beatrice couldn’t help but smile at Atholl, who was doing the closed-lipped, curling smirk he saved for moments when he was amused and awed by the woman he loved. ‘I,um, I wasn’t a natural at it.’ That was an understatement, she knew, and Beatrice was sure the freckled spots beneath Atholl’s eyes were turning pink with good humour as he listened. He’d convinced Beatrice to try making a wreath back in the summer. That day she’d felt her attraction to him growing and he’d let down his grumpy armour, revealing the truth; that he was as soft as butter underneath the sternness.
The reporter, seeing Beatrice smiling at someone off camera, followed Beatrice’s gaze and, hawk-like, turned on Atholl, motioning out of shot for the cameraman to turn his lens towards the big redhead leaning against the stone doorway of the inn.
Beatrice watched the reporter’s eyes widen as the camera panned up Atholl’s tall, broad frame. Atholl immediately uncrossed his arms and stood upright, clearing his throat, his face turning serious and brooding, the way it had when Beatrice first met him.
‘Are you that willow tutor, by any chance?’ the reporter asked.
‘I am.Uh… I’m Atholl Fergusson, another of the inn’s managers, and the willow tutor, right enough.’ Atholl’s voice was grave. ‘But Beattie is better placed to tell you about the inn than I…’
‘And how do your students respond to you, Atholl?’
Beatrice, now entirely forgotten, couldn’t help drawing back her neck, affronted, as the interview carried on without her. The woman was asking Atholl to turn his hands, calloused from his craft, towards the camera and asking if his visitors always left satisfied. The reporter certainly had the look of a woman whose working day had taken a sudden turn for the better.
As he answered the next question, Atholl threw Beatrice a flash of wide eyes and quirked brow, showing his acceptance of the situation but letting her know he understood what was happening. Beatrice rolled her eyes with a smile.
